by Jill Shalvis
“Save it for the idiots.”
Fifteen minutes later, Matt parked at the trailhead to Widow’s Peak. “Hell.”
“What?” Josh asked.
“The gate’s open.” And he’d locked it personally. “The CLOSED sign is missing.”
“That’s not good.”
“Nope.” Matt drove through the gate, taking the fire road that would bring them to the same midpoint plateau that the climbers were on. They had to park about a quarter of a mile from the area, where they found another truck—the climbers’ vehicle, no doubt. Matt and Josh hiked the rest of the way in, startling the guys just as they were getting ready to take a go at the peak.
“This area is closed,” Matt told them.
The climbers were in their late teens. Three of the four of them took one look at Josh and Matt and just about shit their pants. Not their ringleader, whom Matt recognized as Trevor Wright, the teenage son of Allen Wright, a very successful builder who thought he was God’s gift to the entire county. With a cocky grin, Trevor held his ground. “Who’re you, the climbing police?”
“Yeah, I’m the climbing police.” Matt badged him. “And you’re not supposed to be here.”
“Public property, dude.”
Matt shook his head. This was the problem with the Wrights in general. They thought they owned Lucky Harbor, and everything around it. They also thought the laws didn’t apply to them. All four boys smelled like weed. Hell, there was practically a cloud of it around Trevor’s head. “The gate was shut and locked,” Matt said mildly. “And there was a CLOSED sign.”
“Sorry, man. That gate was wide open, and I didn’t see no sign. And you’re hassling us for no reason. We haven’t done nothing wrong.”
Trevor’s friends weren’t looking so comfortable anymore and had started to back up. “Come on, Trev,” one of them said. “Let’s hit it.”
Trevor widened his tough-guy stance. “They can’t do anything to us,” he said, smiling right at Matt. “They’re only rangers. They know the names of the flowers and how to start a fire.”
“Luckily I know how to do a little more than that,” Matt said. “And if you’re carrying drugs, I’ll arrest you.”
Trevor shrugged out of his backpack and tossed it over the cliff, where it promptly vanished into thin air, careening off the rocks as it fell to the valley floor hundreds of feet below. “I’m not carrying anything.”
“Jesus, Trevor,” one of his friends said. “You’re crazy.”
“Yeah,” another said. “We’re outta here.” He and the others took off.
Trevor stood there posturing for a long beat and then started after his friends, shoulder checking Matt hard as he did. “You see that?” the little dickwad said to Josh. “Your partner pushed me.” He pointed at Matt. “Not cool, man.”
Josh waited until Trevor vanished down the trail after the others. “Okay, so why didn’t we crack some heads, specifically his?”
Matt slid him a look. “You have a contact high. You save lives, remember?”
“Yes, but the occasional head cracking would be fun.”
Matt shook his head. “My job’s to chase them out of here. They’re chased. Let’s go.”
They closed the gate, and Matt radioed dispatch that he needed a new lock and sign brought out. Then he and Josh drove all the way around the canyon and hit the meadow floor, looking for that backpack.
They didn’t find it.
An hour later, Josh, who’d called in to the hospital that he was going to be late so that he could help Matt search, rubbed his stomach. “I’m starving. You’re buying.”
“Why me?” Matt asked. “Your paycheck’s a lot bigger than mine.”
“You got laid last night.”
“What does that have to do with who’s buying breakfast?”
“Everything.”
“How much farther?” Grace asked breathlessly.
“We’ve only gone a quarter of a mile,” Amy said.
“But I’m ready for a chocolate break.” This was from Mallory, who swiped an arm over her damp brow.
“You both walk farther for your morning coffee,” Amy said. She’d been worrying about Riley, and was tired of waiting for the girl to come to her. Amy was going proactive. So they were heading toward the Squaw Flats campgrounds, though Amy had told the Chocoholics only that it was a great day for a hike and had lured them up the mountain with the promise of brownies as a prize.
“Here’s another good girl lesson,” Mallory said. “Never refer to your friends’ lack of fitness.”
Grace looked around at the lush, thick growth and inhaled deeply. “It smells like Christmas out here.”
“Tell me again why we’re hiking instead of sitting in a nice booth at the diner?” Mallory asked.
“We’re calorie burning,” Amy said. “It means guilt-free brownies. Just another quarter of a mile or so.”
“Seriously,” Grace said, huffing and puffing as they moved along. “This taking the Chocoholics on the road experiment might be a bust. Are we almost there yet?”
Amy shook her head. “And I thought I was a city girl.”
“I have to pee,” Grace said.
“There’s a bunch of trees,” Amy said. “Pick one.”
“Like I trust your judgment on pee spots.”
“Maybe you should,” Mallory said. “It caught her Ranger Hot Buns.”
“True,” Grace mused. “Do you ever call him that?” she asked Amy.
Amy laughed. “Not if I want to live.”
They came across a small clearing. The sun was strong here, and it was beautiful. But they weren’t the only ones enjoying it. Leaning with their backs to a fallen log sat Lance and Tucker. The two brothers were eating sandwiches and sucking down bottled water. Covered in dust from head to toe, their grins appeared all the whiter when they flashed them.
“Hey, ladies,” Lance said in his low and husky voice, roughened from years of the lung-taxing coughing the CF caused him. “Looking good.”
Tucker held up a baggie of brownies. “Anyone want to join us?”
“Oh my God, yes,” Grace said with great feeling. “Amy’s being a brownie Nazi.”
Mallory put out a hand and halted her, serving the brothers a careful, narrow-eyed gaze. “Are those brownies home-made?”
Tucker grinned, slow, lazy and unabashed, and Amy burst out laughing. She hadn’t thought about the quality of their brownies, but she should have when it came to Tucker.
Mallory shook her head at the guys. “What did I tell you about your brownies?”
“Uh…” Tucker said, trying to think. “That they kill brain cells?”
“Chocolate doesn’t kill brain cells,” Grace said, oblivious to what they were talking about. “Chocolate is God’s gift.”
“Not the way these two make it,” Amy told her as Mallory gave them the bum’s rush back onto the trail.
A few minutes later, they neared Squaw Flats. “You two rest here for a few,” Amy said, and pulled out the lunch she’d packed from the diner, handing out sandwiches. “I’m going to just go up the road another half a mile to check out a vista I want to draw later. Wait here.”
“Where’re the brownies?” Grace asked.
Amy pulled out the stash. “Not as good as what Tucker had,” she said dryly. “But they’ll do. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t fall down any ravines,” Mallory said, and took a big bite out of her brownie. Apparently she liked dessert first, too. “I’ve got the same first aid skills as Matt, but I doubt I’ve got the same bedside manner.”
Grace snickered, and Amy rolled her eyes. But it was true. Matt had some seriously good bedside manner.
Amy found Riley about a third of a mile away, sunning on a rock, staring pensively out at a colorful meadow. The rains had been steady last season, leaving the meadow alive with head-high grass and wildflowers. All around them, the air pulsed with buzzing insects and butterflies.
Riley looked over, caught s
ight of Amy, and sighed.
Amy pulled a bag from her backpack and dropped it at Riley’s feet.
“What’s this?”
“Look inside,” Amy said.
Riley paused for a long beat, making it clear that she would do only whatever she wanted to do and on her own schedule. But clearly her curiosity finally got the best of her and she opened the pack. Inside was more bottled water, a lunch like the one she’d packed the Chocoholics, and soap and shampoo.
“Thought you might be low on supplies,” Amy said.
Riley nodded. “Thanks.” While she looked over the goods, Amy looked her over. Riley had shadows in her eyes and dark circles under them. She wasn’t getting enough sleep, that much was clear.
“There’s a key to my place in the side pocket. It’s yours.” Amy paused. “Come back with me.”
“I’m good here.”
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“You said you wouldn’t tell.”
Amy sighed and sat next to her. “I haven’t. I won’t. But it’s not safe for you.”
“Trust me,” Riley said, pulling out a sandwich. “It’s safer than anywhere else.”
Amy’s heart squeezed. God, she’d so been there. “I realize you think you have no one to trust, but it’s not true.”
Riley slowed down the inhaling of her sandwich. She didn’t respond, but Amy knew she was listening.
“I ran away from home when I was sixteen,” Amy said softly. “I never looked back. My goal was to get as far away as possible. I hitchhiked with strangers and slept in alleys. I trusted no one, and as a result, no one trusted me.”
Riley hugged her knees to her chest. “How did you do it?”
“I lied about my age and took whatever jobs I could get. Except for hooking, I managed to avoid that one.”
“I never hooked either,” Riley said quickly.
“Good. Because you’re worth far more than that. You know that, right?”
Riley hunched her shoulders. “I know I don’t want any guy’s hands on me.”
Amy let out a shaky breath as her own memories hit her hard. This was as she suspected, and as she feared. “Who put his hands on you?”
Riley laid her head down on her knees, her face turned away from Amy.
“Someone at home?”
Still as a statue, Riley didn’t respond.
“Your dad?”
“Don’t have one. And I got taken away from my mom. She wasn’t fit.”
“So you were in foster care,” Amy said.
A pause. Then a quiet, “yeah.”
Where she’d probably been mistreated, possibly sexually abused, and had decided that the entire male species sucked golf balls.
Couldn’t blame her, though Amy herself had gone the opposite route. Sex had become power, and for a long time, she’d really liked holding the power.
“I just want to be free to do what I want,” Riley said. “Without anyone trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do.”
“Well, of course. Everyone wants that,” Amy said. “Everyone deserves that. Riley, you aren’t alone.”
Riley turned her head and looked at Amy, seeming heartbreakingly young.
“You have me,” Amy said. “And together we’re a ‘we.’ ”
“But you’re already a ‘we.’ With the ranger.”
Amy had never been a “we” with a man. At least not for more than a few hours, and that Riley thought Amy was with Matt startled her. But she sure as hell didn’t want to explain to Riley that all she and Matt had was a mutual enjoyment of rubbing their favorite body parts together.
“Not exactly,” she said. “Did you think about the job?” It would keep her in sight, and Amy could watch over her, make sure she was safe and eating. She waited for Riley to once again ask why Amy cared but she didn’t.
Progress.
“I’ve thought about it,” Riley said. “I’ll do it.”
Baby steps, but that was okay. Amy had discovered life was all about baby steps.
Chapter 16
One of life’s little mysteries is how a two-pound box of chocolate can make a person gain five pounds.
Matt had a hell of a long day, which included noncompliant picnickers, a search-and-rescue mission for a beginning biker on an advanced trail, a small wildfire in the fourth quadrant, which had nearly gotten away from them, and the arrest of an idiot for illegal poaching. When he finally left his post, he went to the diner for a late meal.
Okay, he went to the diner to catch sight of Amy. He deserved it after the day he’d had. Amy happened to be on a break when he walked in, sitting at a small table in the far corner, bent over something.
Drawing, he realized when he got closer. She was sketching on her pad, oblivious to the room. Or at least she was until he got about halfway across the diner, then suddenly she went still, lifted her head, and met his gaze.
Lots of things flickered across her face, with heat leading the way. But what grabbed him by the throat and held on was the reluctant affection.
She wanted him. He’d proven that. Hell, he wanted her right back. But she also liked him. She didn’t want to, but she did. Inexplicably buoyed by that, he slid into her side of the booth, pressing his thigh to hers. “Hey.”
“Hey.” As always, she closed her sketch book and slid it away from him. “I was just taking a break.”
“You ever going to let me see your drawings?”
“I don’t know. They’re sort of personal.”
He leaned in close. “You’ve shared your body with me. And that felt pretty personal.”
She gave him a little shove and a laugh. “Not the same thing.”
Enjoying the sound of her amusement and the fact that she looked so pretty smiling, he let one of his own escape. “One of these days, you’re going to want to share with me.”
“My drawings?”
“Those too.”
She nudged him again, less of a shove this time. “Move. I’ll get up and get your order going.”
He didn’t move, but he did enjoy her hands on him, one on his arm, the other on his chest, especially since they lingered as if she couldn’t help herself. “I’m a patient man, Amy. I can wait.”
“It’s late, and you’ve got to be hungry,” she said, purposely misinterpreting that sentence. “At least let me put your order in. The usual, right? Or a double-double?”
They’d shared a double-double just last night, and it hadn’t been food. And actually, she’d gotten more than two orgasms. Maybe even a quadruple. He smiled at the memory, and she pointed at him.
“Stop that,” she said.
“Stop what?”
“You know what. You’re thinking things.”
He laughed. “Okay, you caught me. I’m definitely thinking… things.”
She looked around to see if anyone was paying them any attention. No one was. He’d come late enough tonight that the place was nearly emptied out. Only two customers were at the counter and one at a table on the far side of the diner. Leaning in, Matt put his mouth to the sweet spot just beneath Amy’s ear. “Why don’t you tell me what things you think I’m thinking?”
She actually blushed beet red, which was so adorably revealing that he laughed. She shoved him again, which made him laugh more.
“You’re crazy,” she said.
Yes. It was entirely possible that he was crazy. Crazy for her.
Riley walked by. She was wearing ratty jeans, battered sneakers, a sweatshirt he recognized as Amy’s, and a bright pink Eat Me apron. She was carrying a tray of dirty glasses and dishes and a very large chip on her shoulder. Matt looked at Amy.
“I got her a job,” she said, and when he smiled at her, she lifted a shoulder. “It was no big deal.”
But it was. “You’re helping her.”
“Anyone would.”
“That’s the thing,” he said. “They wouldn’t. They don’t.”
She stared at him. “You seem to have this
blind faith in me, like I’m a good person and some sort of decent influence.”
“You are.” He reached out and pushed a strand of hair back off her face, stroking it behind her ear. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
She was already shaking her head. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough. It’s all there in your eyes.”
Those eyes met his now, filled with a warmth he didn’t know if he’d ever get used to.
“Your life has been very different from mine,” she said.
“Does it matter?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
She looked around the diner, then back at him. And then she put her hand on her sketchbook and pushed it across the table toward him.
Not one to squander an opportunity, Matt put his hand over hers on the book. “Yeah?”
She paused and then pulled her hand free. “Yeah.”
He held her gaze, smiled at her, then opened the book and found himself completely speechless at the sheer mind-blowing talent leaping off the page. Each drawing was a rendering of the Pacific Northwest in some fashion or another. Squaw Flats, Eagle Rock, Four Lakes, Sierra Meadows, and Widow’s Peak, she’d done them all, rendering them in colored pencil, so perfectly that he could almost smell the pines and feel the breeze. “Amy, Jesus. You’re amazing.”
“Thanks.” Her cheeks were a little pink with the praise, making him wonder if she’d ever shown anyone her drawings before.
He flipped back to Sierra Meadows. “This is close to where I found you that night, when you were… not lost.”
That earned him a small smile. “The night I fell down the ravine. The night you shared your tent.”
“Which has been in heavy rotation in my fantasies ever since.”
“You have some sort of a rescue fetish, Ranger Hot Buns?”
“No, I have a pale blue panty fetish.”
She let out a low laugh. “It was dark.”
“I have panty x-ray vision. God-given talent.”
She laughed again, and the sound warmed him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her work. “You’re so talented,” he said, truly awed. “You should show these more often. You know Lucille runs an art gallery, right? She’d love these.”